Physicians have just begun utilizing the Clinical portion of our Electronic Health Record (EHR), called Physician Practice Documentation (PPD). Trainers from Healthland (our EHR provider), were on campus last week to help our physicians and nurse practitioners get used to using it during patient visits. Our practitioners have already participated in extensive hands on training with the program; now they’ve begun entering patient records during appointments.
You can expect your health care provider to spend some time sitting at the computer–there is a station in each patient room. Your care provider will be able to show you x-rays, labs, ultrasounds, etc., while discussing the results with you.
In addition, your clinic medical record will interface with your other EPHC records, so that during a visit your provider can see documentation of previous labs, radiology studies, emergency room visits, and hospital stays.
By the end of the year, health care providers will also begin using e-prescribe to “write” electronic prescriptions that will be sent immediately to your designated pharmacy. Patients are now being asked to bring in all of their old medicine bottles and prescriptions so their doctor or family nurse practitioner can enter all of the medicines they’re currently taking into their record. E-prescribe will automatically alert a provider if a patient has a drug allergy or interaction.